The Challenge

A key food industry customer had completed a facility expansion and needed both exterior and interior door systems installed as part of the build-out. The requirements crossed two distinct categories. The exterior doors needed to maintain strict temperature control — the facility ran food production processes that required a stable interior environment, and every exterior opening was a potential point of thermal loss. The interior high-speed doors had a different mandate: low maintenance and visibility. Production areas that are separated by high-speed doors need operators to see through or around them before cycling to prevent collisions, and in a food environment, a door that requires constant service is a liability.

The Solution

Wilcox Door Service supplied and installed two complementary systems for this facility. For the exterior openings, Richards-Wilcox insulated sectional doors were specified — a leading brand in the industry that uses a polyurethane injection process to fully fill the panel cavity with insulation, ensuring no thermal bridging through hollow sections. This method delivers consistently high R-value performance and maintains the interior temperature envelope the facility required.

For the interior separations, high-speed fabric roll-up doors were installed, selected for their low maintenance profile and clear vision panels that allow personnel to see into the adjacent zone before passing through. In a food production environment, minimizing the need for service calls and maintaining safe traffic flow between production areas are both critical operational requirements — and the specified doors addressed both.

Outcomes

The exterior sectional doors maintained the temperature envelope of the expanded facility from day one of operations. The interior high-speed doors provided the low-maintenance, high-visibility zone separation the production team needed — reducing the risk of traffic incidents and keeping the maintenance schedule clean. The customer had both systems specified correctly for their application and installed by a single contractor who understood the requirements of a food facility environment.